Monster (35 page)

H
igh in a nearby tree red eyes watched the man and the
anima
l
depart
.
The mind behind
the eyes was tempted.
For
a
moment it considered
a
ttacking, swooping
down from
its
branch and taking what it wished. But it hesitated. It had just eaten; it was not overly hung
ry. And there was som
ething about the man, about
people
in general. The
cre
ature
didn't know if it wanted to feed in that way.

The
creature raised a purple talon to touch the figure at the end of the gold chain that hung round its
wrink
led neck, then reset
tl
ed its leathery wings on the
thick
branch where it sat.
It did not understand why it al
way
s
did this when it s
potted human beings. It had no me
mory of where the amulet had come from. It had no
me
mor
y
at all, not even of the fifth planet from the sun
that
had supposedly given birth to it. It had broken the
lin
k to that place at the beginning. The creature simply
ex
isted and fed while time passed.

But as it touched the amulet with its sharp claws it
ca
me
to a
clear
decision not to attack the man. There
was
something wrong about killing humans. The creature
jing
led the amulet, and as
it did a faint wave of sorrow to
uched its mind. It could remember that much
. People were not for eating.